Singapore Commuter

A day in the life

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000+08:00

A day in the life of a long suffering Singapore commuter.

Trying to board a bus

Trying to hang on after boarding a bus

Imperfect Circle

2011-10-11T13:05:00.002+08:00

I was late for work today. And half an hour at that, no thanks to SMRT's newly opened stretch of the Circle Line. I had been hopeful. It would be the first time I would be travelling on that newly opened stretch to make it to the office. I wanted to time the trip, to determine if it would take me less time and if so, by how much.

But as these things go, when something is new, what can go wrong went wrong. The train, starting from Serangoon station towards Dhoby Ghaut station stalled at the second stop, and again at the third stop, and the fourth, and so on. The sweet voice from the intercom said that something was wrong, but didn't explain what was wrong. 'She' apologised, again and again - what do you expect from a 'canned' announcer - sweetness notwithstanding. I was getting irritated at the repeated apologies. Please just go already. And at one stretched, when it was moving ('at last'), it came to an abrupt stop, throwing everyone off balance. This was turning out to be a really bad experience on my first trip on this new stretch of the line. It has only been the third day of its operations. I wondered why. It wasn't as if this is the first time that SMRT is operating a driver-less train. They have been doing it for some time now with the partially opened line, and I have not experience any problems during those rides. I am a regular commuter on this partially completed line.

Well, put it down to beginner's bad luck. Dare I take the train back this evening? Well, lets see what the sky says.

The official figure

2011-08-20T09:41:00.000+08:00

The Institute of Service Excellence (ISES) at the Singapore Management University (SMU) just released the results of its annual customer satisfaction survey of the transport and logistics sector in Singapore. It was conducted between April and June of this year, and generally found improvements over last year's results. These include improvements in its scores for public bus transportation (up 5.3 points over a 100 point scale) and the MRT (up 3.7 points).

As expected, nobody I know who take public bus and MRT transport as often as I do (which is 5 days a week commuting to and from work) can reconcile their experience with the results of this survey. In fact, there are probably more who I do not personally know (and thus cannot vouch for) who would express the same opinion. Just read the comments in response to the report in Today Online. None of these comments expressed agreement with the findings. Some questioned its survey methodology. Others didn't bother - it was just plain wrong, they said. Yet others threw scorn on ISES, saying that it has lost credibility.

Let me say first that ISES, which is under SMU, has done this survey since 2007. It must be credible. Otherwise, it would have closed its doors. There is always the fine print - and point - in interpreting statistical figures. The news media are often at fault in giving the wrong impression. In this case, news headlines suggested that public transport service has improved overall ("Singaporeans are satisfied with public transport system" - Todayonline, "Satisfaction over public transport has increased..." - CNA). And you know, in the age of the sound bite, that's all that anyone is interested in reading - the long suffering man in the street who will disagree, not knowing what exactly he disagrees with, and the smug corporate transport executives who will agree, again not knowing exactly what they agree with. So we are always back to square one.

Survey results are raw. Only when you begin to look closer at the results in specific contexts can you make any meaningful inferences and arrive at certain conclusions. Truth be told, the same set of survey results can be interpreted in any number of ways, depending on what you want to say, or hear. So the 'saying', or interpretation, is important. And when you look closely at what the ISES researchers say, they agree that frequency and punctuality needs to improve further, something that everyone has been saying all along. For the man in the street, the improvement needs to be significantly more. For the transport executive, that's distilled to a number, no more nor less. And this is where they don't see eye to eye. As the ISES researchers have rightly pointed out, it is, after all, a matter of perception although this did not stop them from quantifying such an un-quantifiable attribute.

Up, up and away

2011-08-06T07:54:00.005+08:00

It is said that there is no certainty in life except death and taxes. Well, in Singapore, you can add public transport fare increases. And that's because there is a formula that stipulates such adjustments EVERY year, no matter if the public transport operators provide good and efficient services. This includes an age-old bugbear, which is the timely arrival of buses and their frequencies. Just yesterday, a friend of mine complained of dreading travelling to work because only one bus service plies the route near where she works and she has had to board the second or even the third bus because the first/second one that comes along will simply be too packed to board.

And here, you have the Public Transport Council (PTC) deciding in favour of the transport operators, namely SBS Transit and SMRT, to increase fares across the board by 1%. You might think that 1% is not a whole lot compared to the 2.8% that was asked by the operators, but for any service which falls short frequently, 1% is a percent too much. Is it any coincidence that SMRT, the subway operator, just announced a massive increase in the number of trains that will be put into operation to address the problem of congestion? Why in the first place did the congestion come about? Some people were 'sleeping', right? Well, let's see. Don't count your chicks before they are hatched. Probably only in Singapore do you have a situation where a vendor is allowed to increase prices BEFORE any improvement can be seen and felt by its customers in its services. Yep, Singapore is really business friendly country. Customers? They are there to milk them dry. Commuters have no choice at all as they have to commute to work to earn a living.

But the operators would protest that oil prices have increased, which has eaten into their profits. Coupled with that the increase in their manpower cost, and moreover, there is the annual price adjustment formula (which always works out to an increase), all of which justify asking for the 2.8%. Cost pressures from oil prices? Come on, which business is not adversely affected by oil price increases? And when oil prices decreases, you don't hear from these same public transport operators.

Manpower cost? Every business has manpower cost issues. Apparently, SBSTransit's and SMRT's perennial solution is to charge its commuters higher fares. I wished that some independent party can audit these companies' operations to discover if there are not areas in which manpower cost can be lowered, or if there are not inefficiencies that are not being addressed. The certainly of increasing fares annually, and lack of real competition (mandated by the government, no less) provide no incentive for the operators to do anything about lowering manpower costs. To hedge their bets, they can just 'mark up' the fare increase requested for, have the PTC lower and approve it, and SBSTransit and SMRT can laugh all the way to the bank. Oh sure, they will say that they have improved one thing or another, but they would not have had to try hard enough. Why is it paying its CEO millions of dollars annually if manpower costs are so dire? To these public transport operators, I say, deal with it, and don't beg for more to pay your CEO even more every year.

The PTC claims that public transport fare prices have, on aggregate, decreased between 2008 and 2010 by 3.4%. And what do you know, services have gone from bad to worse within these same years. Sometimes I wonder if the authorities are so fixated on numbers that they miss this point - the real value or lack of it, to the commuting public, which makes it so difficult for long-suffering commuters to swallow a fare increase, however slight, or seemingly well justified. Perhaps its members who sit in judgement never take public transport often enough?

I truly look forward to the day when an increase in public transport fares will be accepted because commuters have seen the value that these operators have given them, and not the pain of the daily commute. Sadly, that day has yet to come. With things as they are, that day may very well never come. After all, I have been waiting all my life...

See also: 1 percent transport fare hike sparks debate online

Up no down

2011-07-15T22:20:00.003+08:00

The transport companies have finally opened their corporate mouths. They want to increase their fares because of rising oil prices and manpower costs. Well, of course manpower costs have gone up. SMRT paid its CEO S$1.85m last year and ComfortDelgro CEO got more or less the same. Going by Wall Street's standards, that's a pittance. But then bench marking against those crooks in NY isn't all that great an idea anyway. In the context of this tiny island where your average Joe in the bus/train earns no more than $35,000 a year, and inflation galloping at 4-5%, S$1.8m a year is a princely sum. And she dares to asked for more? Even Oliver Twist will blush at the thought.

So what's new? Nothing, really. After blowing their trumpets about how they will increase the number of trips and frequency of their buses and trains, I, the man in the street from Mondays to Fridays, hasn't seen, much less felt, any improvements in bus/train frequencies at all. In fact rush hour intervals on the East-West line has gone up from 3 minutes to 4 minutes - I kid you not. And bus frequency? Sorry, I don't take them anymore. I am taking private buses. These buses cost more, but at least they serve me well. And that's really what commuters are looking for, really. If bus/train services provide noticeable and sustained improvements, I will not grudge a couple of more cents increase in fares. Its really when you are asked to pay more for the same lousy service that you get boiled up every time the issue is raised. The PTC is reportedly studying the proposal. Well, I hope the PTC takes their time and start taking the bus and train first before they make a decision, as a brave MP and the Transport Minister Lui has done. But just don't take it for a day, or a week. Make it a month. Then you begin to understand why hardworking people find it so very hard to go to work nowadays.

Horrific Transport

2011-05-24T06:45:00.005+08:00

Where were you all these many years? An MP, from the ruling People's Action Party, Mr Lim Biow Chuan, has finally done the right thing, but after prodding from the just concluded GE 2011. He has actually gone down to the street, literally, to witness for himself residents' complaints about the poor bus service. The new MP for Mountbatten said he was "...'horrified' at the bus service standards in his ward..." (Yahoo News, 21 May) after an on-the-ground check of the bus service level in his ward. I leave you to read what he found out. We must give credit to Mr Lim for walking the talk. Taking that simple but important step to see for yourself your residents' complaints and not assuming that it is a lot of hot air blown by some disgruntled commuters is showing your sincerity in doing your job right. I wonder how often former Transport Minister Raymond Lim bothered to check things out himself, or did he just rely on a team of 'yes' men and women who 'sugar-coat' their assessments for his consumption. Maybe that is why he is the former Transport Minister.

But this problem is not particular to Mountbatten. And it is not new either. In fact, it is endemic to Singapore. I wrote as far back as 2007 my horrendous wait for a bus 27 in Tampines (yeah, that Constituency still helmed by Mr Mah Bow Tan), and pointed out that the problem of poor bus service goes back umpteen years. In all those years, nothing much has changed and with rising transport fares through the years, you get pretty genuinely disgruntled commuters. That is why transport fare increases has never been welcomed, even though it is only a few cents every time. People just cannot associate paying even a cent more for a service which never improves.

Hopefully, Mr Lim's horrific experience will lead to some permanent changes. But you know, I doubt if there will be change. I have become a Singapore public transport cynic after years of bad experience taking public transport. But lets give it a chance. Let's see if any permanent change can come out of this.

Transport crawl

2010-07-11T09:02:00.001+08:00

The transportation powers that be changed the method of charging for public transportation from 3rd July 2010. They named it "Distance Fares". The previous method of charging for travel, which I suppose we should refer to it as 'Non-distance Fares', has been in place since day one, or at least when the MRT started running together with the bus services. Actually nobody has complained about the old way of charging for travel. But many people complained when the fares were revised, almost every year. And they complained about the upward fare revisions because they do no perceive any improvement in value they get for more of their money. Buses (and sometime trains) do not run on time, causing many to spend more time than necessary on the roads. Buses AND trains are crowded during rush hour, with many only able to board the second (or even the third) bus/train that comes along. So there is a lot that need improvements. But we hear the same complaints year in and year out, showing that either we are people difficult to please, or there is something really wrong with the way transportation is being organised or run within the transportation providers' organisations. I think it is the latter.

Why is that? For example, I travel along the Clementi area almost everyday, and it has been my experience that SMRT Service 184 (and in fact most of the buses run by SMRT) are pretty regular. SBS Transit's buses almost always manage to irritate me and are a constant source of ranting to my longsuffering friends. I have always felt that SBS Transit should relook at its people and it scheduling, to provide more consistency to its bus services, but alas, I have waited years and years and nothing has changed, except the bus and train fares.

So you can forgive me if I am cynical about the latest Distance Fares. Isn't it just another way of increasing the fares of public transport? It is said that some commuters (some 34%) will see their transport cost increase and 63% a decrease, and the balance 3%, I suppose, status quo. But this itself is unfair. If I belong to the 34%, I will remain in that 34% until and unless I change jobs or house. So the net effect is that 34% of us are subsidizing 63% of the others in the long run. I don't see in this anything equitable and to be happy about. Neither party gets a better bus or train to ride in.

But having said this, my sense is that the 30, 40 cents increase/decrease is not the real issue. The real issues are the service standards, the predictability and the availability of services that is uppermost in commuters' minds when they set out everyday to work, or try to get home in time to join the family for dinner in the evenings. I know of some people who leave work late in order to avoid the crush of people, but alas, it appears that everyone is doing the same thing. That is why trains are standing room only even as late as 10pm.

This tweaking that is going on and continues to go on isn't bold and innovative enough. What now is willing to step up to the plate to really improve public transport service?

Hub and spoke

2010-03-29T09:46:00.000+08:00

Well, finally somebody is talking sense and thinking out of the box. The Transport supremos in the government are now suggesting a 'hub-and-spoke' model for public bus services, in place of the 'cross-country' type of bus services which has been in place for all these many years. The hub is the MRT stations, the spokes are all the feeder services from the 2 bus companies. Bus services will travel shorter distances, which will minimise delays caused by unexpected road congestions, resulting in more timely and regular bus services. Generally, MRT train services run like clockwork, so this new model of public transport appears logical and may even work. I suppose the viability of this is new service model was just waiting for the rail network to become more comprehensive. But it could have been tried out earlier. Come April 2010, more stations on the Circle line will be opened.

But of course, there are people who are not certain that this will improve things. People fret about having to change multiple transport services getting to their destinations. This is a valid concern, given that people have suffered all these many years from irregular services from the bus companies. Hopefully, with shorter end-to-end trips, service will improve significantly and dispel the bad experience. We should try this out and tweak the system so that it becomes better over time. But of course, by going hub-and-spoke, the transport people should remember that there are exceptions, particularly for places that are not served adequately by the rail network. There are some places which will be served well by one model, but other places where a cross-country model could still be better. The frequency can be less for these cross-country routes, which will help to raise, if not improve the scheduled arrival times for these bus services. The other concern is that the train companies should ensure that their services are not so overcrowded that people need to wait for the next train service because the first one is too full. Then we'll all be back to square one.

Damned Slow

2010-03-13T09:34:00.004+08:00

The standard of public transport services came under the radar on Thursday in Parliament. As usual, promises have been made and there is smug satisfaction that the public's perception of Public Transport Services in Singapore have improved, reportedly from 89.5% 2 years ago (i.e. 2008) to 93.8% this year. But as any good student of Statistics will tell you, these numbers on their own do no tell the whole story. I was thus amused when I read today's (Friday 12 March) edition of myPaper. This is a bilingual paper. On page 4, the English edition gave a positive account of the public transport services in Singapore, highlighting the many plans and promises that the LTA and Minister Raymond Lim made yesterday in Parliament regarding public transport services. One of the reasons for these is to wean people off the owning of private vehicles.

Yet, on the first page of the Chinese section of the same paper, we had reports of complaints by some commuters about long waits for buses (a commuter reported waiting 40 minutes in the evening for a bus), and bus bunching. When the long wait seems to be over, and the bus does arrive, it is so full that you can't even board it. So you have to wait another 30 minutes for the next another bus, if you haven't hopped onto a cab already, that is. This story is no fiction. For the last 2 to 3 months, I have encountered the same problem, buses coming infrequently during rush hour, that I have had to wait for a second bus because the first one that finally appeared was full. Those in a greater hurry just hailed for a cab. One wonders if the bus company is cahoots with the cab company.....oh yah, some bus companies (SMRT, SBSTransit) do own cab companies...

So for those who read English only, the transport situation is as rosy as can be. For those who read Chinese only, the transport situation is in a bad shape. For those who read both, well, we don't know what to think.

Of course, to be fair, this doesn't happen for all services. Some are regular, but it just takes one regularly erratic service to leave you with a bad taste, and, inspite of the high cost, to make a beeline to the motor vehicle showrooms.

Glassy eyes

2009-10-29T06:04:00.004+08:00

Hmmm...took this picture off the internet (read: it is not my work) and found it resonating with what I go through everyday that I take the local subway to and from work. Food for thought.

Seeing double

2009-08-07T09:27:00.004+08:00

Something interesting happened this morning. And yes, it has to do with Dover Bus Stop (just below the Dover MRT station). I spied a 74 coming down the road and rushed down to the bus stop so that I could catch it. But as I reached the bus' front entrance, the signboard read "147". I was stunned. My eyes cannot be failing me at this time, at my age, and at this early hour in the morning? I walked a few steps to check the bus number displayed panel on its fromt panel. Lo and behold, it read "74"! Thank God my eyes are ok and I am still sane.

Now why did this happen? Did SBS Transit find that it was running out of Service 74 buses and therefore, at the last minute, deployed a 147, but in the haste, forgot to switch one of its display panels to 74? This is probably the best explanation. Does this mean that SBS Transit has taken my rant to heart and shown that it is serious about keeping its promises about not being late? If it is, then credit goes to this transport company for being responsive. I would like to think that it is my rant that improved matters, but whoever and whatever the reason, I am happy with Service 74's service this morning.

Well done, SBS Transit. May all my mornings be like this, minus the bus number confusion.

Trashy promises

2009-08-03T09:15:00.009+08:00

Well, as expected, SBS Transit has NOT been able to keep to its commitment of its widely reported 10-minute schedule effective August 2009. I had hoped it would be later rather than earlier. Today, I arrived at the bus stop just below the Dover MRT station at 8.15am. As I expected, the Service 74 bus had just arrived and I missed it. That's ok. I remembered what I blog about it yesterday (Fast Commitment) and decided to test out the promise - schedule-wise. This is, after all, the peak hour of the day. So I SMS'd the bus arrival service and was informed that the next Service 74 will arrive in 10 minutes. That was to be also expected. That was the plan. Well and good.

But I ended up waiting 25 minutes for the next Service 74 bus to arrive. This isn't a good start for the public transport company's commitment to better service. Like I said, it is the doing that proves the promise, and sadly, SBS Transit cannot do what it promises, and so soon at that. And this is not the first time either. In fact, it stretches way way back from when I was a student taking the bus to school. I blogged about this before.

One day, my classmate arrived late for lessons in the morning, and upon enquiry, said that the bus was late. The whole class roared! The teacher ticked him off, implying that the bus cannot be late, that the student is. I thought my teacher made sense. If you want to be punctual, be early, even at the expense of doing nothing when you arrive early. But over the years, I think my classmate, who today is a lawyer, was right. Its the bloody bus, stupid. And so I ended up being late for work today. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to walk into my boss' room to announce my arrival, but it does prick the conscience that I owe my employers so many minutes of loss time (multiply that by the same number of people at the bus stop waiting for the same service this morning and you've got major national productivity issue here). But I comfort myself to know that it is not I but the bus that was late.

Well, so much for SBS Transit's promises. You can throw their commitments into the next long-kang you come across. If it is urgent, you can flush it down the toilet bowl the next time you visit the loo.

But of course, SBS Transit will come out saying that it is the traffic jam though they can't blame the weather. It was sunny and clear this morning. Traffic jam? It really won't hold water because the number of stops between the Dover Bus Interchange and the Dover Bus Stop can be counted on the palm of one's hands. They will insist that the jam is the other direction, resulting in shortage of buses. If what they announced over the weekend is true, they'd be slapping themselves on the cheeks. So what went wrong? My guess is - it is the bus captain - the weakest link in the grand scheme of things. And the shocker is that SBS Transit doesn't seem to realise this. They keep buying new buses, tweeking the satellite links, thereby building up excuses for the next fare hike. The window of 10-minutes is very tight, so bus-captains must be ever so sensitive to the passing minutes, if not seconds, when they board their buses, start the engines and leave on their journeys.

Sadly, this is one thing that does not work, and continues not to work, in Singapore. Nevertheless, in this August month,

Majullah Singapore!

We keep on hoping, even after 36 years!

Fast commitment

2009-08-02T08:10:00.005+08:00

SBS Transit, the local public transport company that runs most of the country's bus services throughout the island nation, and SMRT, which runs a smaller fleet of buses, have committed to get its buses to set out from its interchanges every 10 minutes or less during peak hours. This is an improvement, so it says, on the 13 to 15 minute interval currently in place. Yeah, sure. Show me first before I go ga-ga over the proposed improvements. No use just saying it, doing it is the proof of the pudding, as the saying goes.

Why am I sceptical? Well, I have been taking public transport all my life, and I have always said, even today, that SBS Transit, in particular, has not got its act together schedule and punctuality-wise. No matter what has been done - bus-lanes, satellite tracking, automated ticketing, you name it, has never solved the gripes of most commuters - bus' arrival intervals. Mr Charles Chong, when speaking to some new immigrants in his Pasir-Punggol Constituency in June this year, remarked that they are thankful that buses come in under 30 minutes, unlike (spoilt?) Singaporeans, who complain even about a 15 minute delay. Well, Mr Chong probably doesn't take public transport. Otherwise he would know that a 30 minute interval means that the arriving bus will be so crowded already that few can board it - making the effective waiting time 1 hour - if the bus company has its way.

Yes, a couple of new buses will help, but ultimately, the promise is only as good as the ability of its 'bus captains' to keep to their schedule. A longer than usual toilet break can throw the most finely-tuned schedule into disarray. Has SBS Transit and SMRT scheduled some spare 'bus captains' instead of just increasing the fleet size? Until it realizes that people are the weakest link in the whole scheduling thing will true change for the better come about. And it doesn't need investments in more new buses or satellite links. Why make people pay for things that do not solve the problem?

Merry go round

2009-06-02T12:54:00.003+08:00

I took my first ride on the Circle MRT Line on Saturday, 30th May 2009. It had been opened earlier to fare-paying customers on Tuesday, 26th May 2009. In fact, it had been opened a week earlier for a free preview by the public which, predictably, the public showed up in droves. I didn't like crowds, so I passed on the freebee.

It wasn't an awesome experience, though. With just 4 stations and a train half the length of their normal N-S and E-W ones, it felt more like an LRT than an MRT. But this is only stage 1, so it may be premature to pass judgement.

However, it opened up more options for me to get from my workplace home and vice versa. To this, I must pat the back of LRT/SMRT, and probably also the Transport Minister, Mr Raymond Lim, for giving me more reasons not to drive around the island. It didn't reduce my traveling time significantly though, perhaps shaved off 5 - 10 minutes. But that's not the fault of the train system. The constraint still lies with the unreliable Bus services. If something can be done about this.

One of the bonuses of this circle line is that it gives me convenient access via public transport to the Shunfu Mart, which houses several award winning food stalls - the Chao Guo Tiao stall (fried Kway Teow), and the Hakka food stall. Yummy. The problem is I've got to watch my weight ever more vigilantly now. For your info, the Mart is a short walk from the Marymount MRT station.

Taxi dole

2009-03-13T05:59:00.005+08:00

Whoever (excepting young kids and very old senile seniors) doesn't know that we are going through a recession must have had his/her head stuck in the proverbial desert sand. Jobs have been lost, people by the thousands are showing at at career and recruitment fairs, hoping to secure that 800 or so jobs on offer, probably in industries or businesses they are unfamiliar with. Choice isn't an operational word anymore, at least for breadwinners who need to feed the family.

So I have heard and the press has reported that taxi drivers are also suffering from reduced businesses. The logic is that more people are taking public transport to save money, even as salaries are cut and job security has become the uppermost concern on their minds. So taxis are finding it harder to get passengers. That's how the argument goes.

Well, pardon me if I disagree. Taxi business hasn't really gone down at all, judging from my experience over the last month or so. You see, I always take a cab on Sundays, and for the last few weeks, I have also had to take taxis at various locations around the island during weekdays, such as Clementi and Sims Avenue (near Geylang) - places, which even if you have lived 6 months in Singapore, you would agree has high human traffic almost the entire day.

In all the instances when I wanted to catch a cab home, I have had to wait for no less than 10 minutes for one. Many whiz past with passengers. In fact the other evening, I got fed-up waiting for a cab that I took a bus home. Yeah, it is that bad.

Are Taxi drivers suffering from poorer business? After all, the Chinese New Year has come and gone. So where are the taxis? Lining up at government offices collecting dole money? I have seen how bad business can be for taxi drivers, particularly back in 2003. This recession doesn't look anything like 2003 - it looks very much like business as usual.

Fair revision?

2009-02-22T09:01:00.001+08:00

The Great Singapore Transport Fare Sales!
Up to 4.6% Fare Reduction
Hurry, limited time only*
Everywhere must go

Well, the transport fare revision is finally out, and it is going to kick in in April 2009. But it is good only for one year, up till 30April 2010. How typical of the PTC and the public transport companies to set a time cap. This fare revision almost looks like a great transport fare sale. The smart copy writer who came up with the travel ad "The world is on sale, everywhere must go" could have anticipated this Great Singapore Transport Fare Sales.

We are used to Robinson's sales, and Metro (no, not the transport type in this case) sales, etc., but an SBSTransit / SMRT sales is on for a year? So should I rush to take more bus and train rides, just so that I enjoy the sales discounts, no matter that I really don't need to get from point x to point y, just like what many people do when retailers put up sales promotions and people just buy up the discounted products when they really don't need the products on sales?

And please don't tell me the public transport companies are sacrificing $xx million here and there as if they are doing anybody a favour. After more than 30 years in the public transport business, they still haven't really gotten their act together. Otherwise why do you think that people continue to be willing to pay an arm and a leg for private transport?

* promotion ends 30 April 2010

Up and down

2009-01-26T06:08:00.002+08:00

What's this I hear? The public transport companies are lowering fares? Well, if this is true, it is indeed good news. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let us wait and see. Not that I doubt it will be done. In Singapore, whenever something is announced (i.e. makes the news without official denial), it will be done. That's the good thing about Singapore. The authorities act like authorities.

And its time they did so too, whether there is a recession or not. This lowering of fares is not about charity or corporate social responsibility. Its economics, stupid. First, the price of oil has tumbled to as low as $40 a barrel. Actually, for us old-timers, $30/barrel was hitting the ceiling many years ago, but I don't want to push this. The age, it shows, you know. Previously they raised fare annually, whatever the price of oil, with the blessings of the PTC. The assumption was that their operational cost will always increase, come what may (read: salary increases, including bonuses). Mercifully, Singapore is too small an island for transport executives to fly in their own jets to meetings. But they don't take public transport either...

Next, commuters are increasingly packed like sardines in the train on their way to work and on their way home, everyday, for all 5 days of the week. Mercifully, the reduction of the work week from 6 to 5 was a godsend. On the other hand, this human congestion does bring us closer as a nation, but I suspect that many citizens would rather that it were in spirit rather than in the flesh. But having said that, I must say that generally, Singaporeans, and even foreigners, don't have problem with body odour. They don't perfume themselves too heavily either, so the packed ride is spared the smell you would normally get in a crowded soccer match. This one thing I can say about Singaporeans, they are a sensible lot, at least on a train or bus. Nevertheless, the public transport companies owe it to the commuters to make the congestion more bearable either by enlarging the trains, or baring this, reducing the fare so our pockets don't keep hurting.

Third, with the money that the public transport companies, i.e. SMRT and SBS Transit, are going to receive from the government in its latest 'giveaway' budget, it will be unconscionable for them to keep it, and worst if they were to give themselves any bonus out of it, like what the insensitive, and might I say greedy Chief Executives in the US are doing even as their ships are sinking. The public transport companies in Singapore have always turned a profit. Their cashflow is quite stable and their de facto monopoly business is probably the best business to be in in recessionary Singapore. They get more business during bad times compared to good times.

The question now is, how much of a reduction will there be?

New ez-link is hard

2009-01-25T05:56:00.003+08:00

I spoke too soon. From my use of the new ez-link card these past couple of days, it appears that not every card reader, whether on buses or train stations, are created equal. Some read my card without any problems (of course, I continue to have to use that workaround technique described in my previous blog entry), some have to be 'coaxed' to read it, i.e. the 'last-resort' card sans wallet technique has to be used. The worst performing card readers, it would appear, are in the very busy MRT stations such as Clementi and Sengkang. (Well, I do use these stations quite a fair bit).

I don't understand it. These are contact readers so it shouldn't suffer from wear and tear. The only mechanisms that need periodic cleaning and maintenance are the mechanical gates. Some of them can sometimes be retarded, but that's pardonable.

I hope my rant about the new ez-link card is over. It hasn't been a pleasant experience using it. I am just now getting used to it and I don't want any more unpleasant surprises...

Old is better

2009-01-21T07:26:00.001+08:00

Singapore is a place with a reputation for efficiency. So naturally, I took my complaint about the new ez-Link card to the person sitting in the MRT Control Station. I explained the problem and asked, rather rhetorically, if I could have back my old card. He just reached over his desk, retrieve a piece of paper and handed it to me. He said that I should contact the 1800 number on the paper and explain my card problem. That's very efficient indeed, paring away a complaint in less than it take to say, "I have a problem". You also begin to wonder why the Control Station has such a ready stock of these pre-printed slips of paper with instructions to call a 1800 number.

On second thoughts, these people were in charge of ensuring that the trains are running ok, and handle issues related to the train station. Don't ask a cat to produce milk. Hey! you got the wrong guy, right? I took the paper but lo and behold, the listed number to call was for lost or stolen cards. Now, my card is neither stolen nor lost... I gave up with officialese. I had to solve the problem myself. So much for Singapore's reputation for efficiency, and we are thinking big about growing our service economy...

I surmised that the reader might not be able to read my new ez-Link card because it was buried in all my other cards in the wallet. I re-arranged my cards so that the ez-Link card was on its own and nearest the outer back of the wallet. This way, it would be the first card that comes into contact with the signals of the reader. And it worked!

But I have a new irritant. The readers on buses take a longer time to read my card compared to the old one! Previously, it was really 'touch and go'. Now, with this new card, it was 'touch wait hear look hear and then go', taking me at least a second more than I previously took to get out of the bus. Now, you may think that 1 second isn't a long time, so what am I complaining about? But when you consider that when everyone else has to do the same, you are looking at a lot longer to process the queue out of and into the bus. That's not progress.

This new-fangled ez-link card? Well, the LTA can have it back and eat it for breakfast, for all I care. I want my old card back.

Old Card New Card

2009-01-20T06:42:00.002+08:00

Since 9 January 2009, Singapore Bus and Train commuters are able to use the new CEPAS-compliant ez-link card on the subway train (MRT/LRT transportation network) and the bus services operated by SMRT and SBSTransit. And since that day, people have been queueing up to get the latest 'gadget' in a one-for-one exchange of their existing ez-link card. The public has up till 30 September to change their existing cards, after which, if I am not wrong, the existing card will no longer be valid.

And in typical Singapore style, long queues have formed to get this latest card. Given that 30 Sep 09 is the deadline, there is really a lot of time to do the changeover, so people really do not have to queue. But I found myself in the queue last week and got mine changed within 10 minutes. Call me kiasu, or whatever, but I have since regretted my haste. This new cards has been an irritant because the fare gates at the MRT stations just refuses to read the card unless I remove it from my wallet. I suspect that the reader might have problems deciphering the various cards in my wallet, as happened with the new NETS Cashcard I bought a couple of months ago. In the case of the Cashcard, I had to put it in my coin and key wallet. I don't shudder to think that I need to carry a third wallet to isolate the new ez-link card.

The odd thing is, the readers on the buses, whether those from SBSTransit or SMRT, have no problems whatsoever with this new card. I continue to successfully 'beep' the card while still lodged in my wallet, as I used to do with the old card. Sheesh. I say again - I now regret changing to the new card. It has no significant added benefit over the old card, at least for now, until some other establishments, such as retail shops, start accepting them from February onwards, as promised. Payment for ERP using this card will have to wait a bit longer as the in-vehicle-units need to upgraded also.

I hope Transitlink and LTA will resolve this problem - err...not by replacing the readers on the buses, mind you. Carrying three wallets will make my pants bulge - I just don't want to be mistaken for being permanently, err, on via***, you know. Right now, this new ez-link card is nothing but a pain in the ass, really.

See also:
SeP - LTA's new generation e-payment system
ez-Link card exchange exercise

Driving service

2008-11-08T07:47:00.014+08:00

I don't know if it has anything to do with the falling price of oil, and the resulting drop in the price of petrol. I don't know if it has anything to do with the impending removal of the 30 cents taxi surcharge. I don't know what the recession is doing to people. Or is it simply because I was irritated?

I bought a 5-level stocker yesterday - quite large by normal standards. A brave decision because I don't drive and I was at Giant, Tampines - which is as far away from civilisation that you could find in urban Singapore. How could I lug that home, I wondered? It wouldn't fit in a bus without my getting cold stares from the public and walking was definitely not a option. Taxis were the only means of transporting that stocker and myself home. I was hopeful that it would fit into the booth of a taxi. You'd have to try, right? And anyway, if it didn't, surely it would fit in the back seat?

A Comfort taxi came along after a very short wait. I asked the driver to open his booth, but lo and behold, there were a couple of pails in there. I asked the driver if he could somehow remove the pails (perhaps to the front passenger seat) so that I could try to fit my stocker into the booth. He threw a glance at my stocker and said it wouldn't fit. All this while he kept his bum on his seat. He just wasn't interested to help think of alternatives, nor to come off his seat and his taxi to assess my situation more closely. He just wasn't interested, period. It was just a 'take it or leave it, I'm not going to help attitude'. There wasn't anybody else in the queue. He was just 'happy' to burn petrol while waiting for some other would-be passenger to come by. Eventually, he drove off without a passenger.

Meanwhile, I waited for the next cab to come by, hoping I would get more help. Another did come by, a Premier Taxi. This time, the driver got off his taxi and helped me fit the stocker into his booth. It didn't fit, so he suggested the back seat. He helped me put it in and we were off. All this probably took less than 2 minutes - and he earned not only my cab fare, but my respect. I took down his name and cab number, silently. This was stuck on his windscreen. I mean to write to Premier to let them know that they have an excellent driver.

It is often said that we remember the bad things people do, and not the good. Well, I had forgotten to take down the number of the first taxi. I should have so that I could also write to Comfort Cab about the rotten apples in its basket of cab drivers.

Leg up to Public Transport

2008-10-21T06:07:00.010+08:00

There's a new public transport web site and service available. Unlike SBSTransit's Iris NextBus for mobile devices, which is only available to Singtel and Starhub subscribers, this new service is available to anyone with a cellphone. With this new service, the public transport commuter just sends an SMS message to the number 77722 with the bus stop number. Within seconds, a list of arrival times for all buses at the bus stop will be sent to the cellphone. I tried it twice, and its fairly accurate. Maybe not up to the second accurate. It may be 1-2 minutes off, but in terms of sequence of arrival of the buses, it is spot on.

The only limitation with this service is that it only covers the academic town of Clementi - so students in Singapore Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, NUS, NTU and UniSIM are the main beneficiaries of the free service. It won't be free forever. Come next year (April, I think), each query will be charged. What the exact charge is, over and above the cost of the SMS, which must still be borne by the public transport commuter, is not known yet. iris Nextbus charges 5 cents per SMS request for postpaid customers and 10 cents for prepaid customers (Singtel prepaid accounts only). Since this is a service provided by LTA, it should cost less, hopefully. If it doesn't cost too much, it is going to be a winner, at least for those who use public transport in Clementi.

Oftentimes, I debate whether I want to take the bus on the other side of the road, or this side as several buses on different routes can take me to the same destination. What if I moved away from the bus stop and minutes later, find the bus that I was waiting for 'sailing' in? It happened before several times, much to my dismay. So with this Publictransport@sg system, there'd be no more second guessing. I can make an informed decision.

Public transport has just got a leg up.

Image: morgueFile.com. Author: Martin Cannings

It takes two

2008-10-17T14:42:00.004+08:00

The price of oil has plummeted, in concert with the banks and investment houses going broke in the US and Europe. Singapore is now in a recession, yet the price of services in Singapore is still going up, or at least, not going down any time soon.

Electricity has gone up a whopping 20%. Transport costs, particularly taxi services, refuse to go down. A surcharge of 30 cents was slapped on taxi fares some time ago when the price of oil was going north at US$130/barrel. The price of oil is now US$70-$80 a barrel, and we learn that in spite of this, fuel oil is sold at a premium in Singapore for daa daa daa dee dee dee reasons...

Which of us common folks can understand ther pricing mechanism, anyway? The pump price for diesel is $1.53/litre now and the taxi company, in collusion, refuses to take away the surcharge, saying that it will be removed once the price of diesel falls to $1.19 - the December 07 level. So much for competition. Even cars running on gas pretend that they are on diesel.

What if the price of diesel falls to $1.20 and no lower? Then the surcharge will be a permanent charge, and you have the new model of increasing taxi prices. No need to agonise over prices increases in future since all you have to tell the PTC is that the increase is temporary. Well, how temporary is temporary? While commuters quibble over 2 cent increases, or even 10 cents increases that bus companies impose, we have the taxi companies getting away with 30 cent increases (well, ok, the taxi companies also run the public bus services and vice versa).

Well, there are two ways to skin a cat (my apologies to cat-lovers). Either we wait for the pump price of diesel to fall to that magical number, or we force the removal of the surcharge by with-holding our business. Commuters should just vote with their feet, literally, and take less taxis.

And it seem to be happening. Last Sunday, there was a long queue of taxis in front of my place. Usually, you'd have to wait at least 10 minutes to board one, if you are fortunate. Otherwise it would be 20 minutes. On that occasion, I spied a woman with a clipboard writing away while glancing at the taxi queue. No, I don't mean the people queueing for the taxi, I mean the taxi queueing for customers. The last time this happened was during the bad times, economically, that SARs brought. It was a breeze when you'd want to take a taxi then, because they are all lining up for you. When the good times return soon after, commuters were at the selective mercy of taxi drivers again, though not entirely due to the fault of the taxi companies.

I don't know what that woman's purpose was. Usually it is either to report back that there is not enough taxi's at a particular spot or the frequency is good/bad so that something can be done about it. This time around, there probably wasn't any concern for the commuter. It appears that the taxi drivers are more concerned. Well, it was only last Sunday. I would like to see if this happens again. If it does, then it would confirm that people's pockets are truly in sync with the reported recession that Singapore has slippped into.

Image source: morgueFile.com. Author: Cheryl Rankin

Fair fares

2008-09-14T09:18:00.006+08:00

It has arrived! The next round of public transport fare increases has been announced and they are set to take effect from 1 Oct 2008. The facts are all here. Nobody likes fare increases, except perhaps the public transport companies and their shareholders. So every time these announcements are made, Singaporeans wait with bated breadth - ready to pounce on why the regulators and transport operators have got it all wrong, that they are profiteering, especially in times where inflation seen to be running ahead of everyone.

Over the last couple of years, however, Singaporean's have been prepared for more smaller increases in transport fares so that objections would not be so vocal, and it isn't all that vocal now. Personally, I find the fare revision this time to be fair and, more importantly, fact-based. The PTC, under Mr Gerard Ee, has done a great job of dissecting the issues and looking up the books to come out with a justifiable fare revision. Not everyone needs to pay more. Those who take longer journeys with multiple transfers will see their transport fares reduced. On the other hand, those traveling shorter distances will pay more. Yet the net effect of these revisions will see the transport companies gain a couple of percentage points more in terms of revenue. I appreciate that benchmarks such as ROTA (Return on Total Assets) was used to prove to one and all (including the transport executives) where the transport companies stood in terms of profitability. It takes away the perception that the transport companies are always out to make a killing whenever it increased fares. And the paper does recognise that certain groups of people will still find the increases difficult.

This is what the PTC should be about. Looking into the transport issues in a holistic manner, neither seeking to advantage one over another. My erstwhile bad impression of the PTC was seared into my mind (and I believe most of the rest of Singaporean's mind) when, under its previous Chairman, commuters were always left high and dry. Then, whenever there was a fare increase, the then Chairman of the PTC will speak out FOR the transport companies without fail, to defend the need for a fare increase - viz - its been a long time since the last increase, operating costs have gone up, labour cost have risen, etc. etc. It was always the same refrain, so much so that what should be reasons for fare increases have become excuses for it.

When the PTC does not speak up for the long suffering commuters, who will? The MPs were largely ineffective in protecting the interests of its commuting public too. And the government? Well, there's the PTC where transport matters are concerned. But to be fair, the government did define a more predictable formula for transport fare increases and change the Chairman for the better.

So thank you, Mr Gerard Ee. Truly you have continued the good work of your father in looking out for the less fortunate among us.

Why Blog This?

2008-09-01T07:51:00.000+08:00

I don't drive. I take public transport in Singapore. So transport information is very important to commuters like me. There is a lot of information available on transport services in Singapore on the internet, but unfortunately, for the un-initiated (and even for the veterans), these information are scattered all over. This blog site attempts to bring as much of these information together in a single page. At the same time, it allows me to comvent (comment and vent) about my experience and thoughts about public transport in Singapore.